Do disembodied spirits have freewill?

Question

By disembodied spirits I mean the souls of humans, demons and angels. If they do indeed have freewill could any one of them either grow closer to God or oppositely fall away?

rocky road, according to the Bible "demons" can occupy bodies, hence they can become disembodied spirits.

ldyrhiannon I enjoyed your delineation of spirits into four categories. This could be helpful for future references.

If the Devil and his angels are going to end up in the lake of fire and don't have a choice then how can they be held responsible for their actions? It sounds like they are being forced to remain evil, which sounds pretty evil to me, and God is not evil. It's a harsh theological view you are espousing. I hope you and others can find your way to a more compassionate perspective.

Paul Richard, you have expressed the most positive perspective as of yet. I appreciate their are people out their that have reached your level of enlightenment.

padminig, I'm not sure there is a definitely difference between soul and spirit but in the least even according to the bible, they not only have spirits but are spirits.

Paradise, according to another book, the dictionary, Spirits means "A life-giving force; also the animating principle: Soul".

amylr620, how do you know that there is no such thing as a disembodied spirit. You can't know what you haven't experienced.

Answer 1

Absolutely.

All souls have freewill and everyone has the choice to grow away from The Light (through selfish, immoral acts, lust, irresponsibility, etc.) or towards The Light (through selfless acts, love, sacrifice, etc.).

Answer 2

Ok, as a ghost hunter I think I have a better chance of answering than what you have gotten so far. It largely depends on the "type" of spirit. Most of your "disembodied spirits" are souls of humans. I have never heard of a demon being a disembodied spirit, a poltergiest yes but not a demon. Anyways. Spirits come in 4 flavors. The fist is what is called residual or place memory. What that is is a scene from the past replaying over and over and usually at the same time or day of the month. A good example is the ghosts of Gettysburg. The second is a grounded spirit. They are "stuck" to a place or thing and are not able to pass on to the "otherside". They are usually ones you hear about having unfinished business. The third are spirits in visitation. They are able to travel from one place to another and back to "heaven" if you will on their own free will. The last are the intelligent spirits. They are the ones that can communicate with the living (a ghostly form of a medium LOL). As to them growing closer to god or falling away, once a spirit has passed to the light that is all there is unless they choose to visit. Those who are grounded are still trying to go to the light and are sometimes unsure how, are afraid to or can't see the light. A spirit will not fall away from god as all spirits of the dead must go to the spirit world first for judgement.

Answer 3

I feel everything with a soul (physical body or not---angel, demon, or human) has freewill. I believe that a lot of spirits that are said to be 'trapped' are just choosing to stay where they are because they are afraid. I do believe they have a choice to fall from God. But ultimately, they are all just parts of one big Being; kind of like all your cells are individual, but at the same time, part of you. The individual spirits are the Creator expressing Itself.

Hope that doesn't sound too far out there! :-)

Answer 4

The devil (false accuser, slanderer, liar, thief, murderer, etc... ) and his angels end up in the lake of fire. They don't have a choice. I believe accepting God's free gift of salvation is available to everyone. If one rejects God's saving grace stubbornly throughout life, it is likely one won't be ready if they die & stand in the spiritual realm. They either stand before God and Heaven's Gates or stand before Hells flames without God.

An example of one going straight to hell is: A person self-righteously accuses and condemns someone else and kills them and kills self. That person never received God's saving grace and rejected it and won't receive it because person is so proud & exalted in self-righteousness.

God resists the proud & gives grace to the humble. Salvation comes by grace through faith in God.

Demons are floating around trying to possess someone. God allows that to a certain point depending on the persons choices. Jesus delivers people from this, and any born again christians cannot be possessed by them because the Holy Spirit is with them and shall be in them. Still demons can seriously oppress christians. The cure is to submit to God (obedience) and His Word, resist Satan & Satan will flee. Works every time, because it is a promise in God's Word.

To person under me, "Why would Jesus promise us everlasting life? if it weren't true." Why would Jesus say the most important commandment, "Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, mind, soul & strength." if we didn't have a soul. God is Love. God is Spirit. Love is fruit of the Spirit.

Answer 5

Disembodied spirits are only a part of a spirit that is stuck in this world by its attachments to material things. Angels are quite different, and are not spirits. Do you remember the two angels that visited Lot? They were quite physically there in his house, and they were men, not spirits. Angel simply means "messenger" and they were messengers of the Watchers...or the Annunaki, depending on which Bible you use. The spiritualisation of the Bible was the doing of Constantine and Paul the "apostle" neither of whom ever met Jesus. The council of Nicea made up the resurrection and flying angels, along with a lot of other lies intended to make us believe that jesus was Christ. Jesus denied being "the Kristos" (Christ) in his lifetime, but after his death, the Romans...who hated him and killed him...made up Christianity and Catholicism in order to control the populace.

Answer 6

Well angels and fallen angels = demons do have free will but angels who have stayed at side of god don't want to broke against god and fallen angels can do what they want because they don't care about god's laws good will that's why fallen angels do do sin and result of sin will be that everyone will wheel bad
and why am I telling this? that's because bible does not give us information of angels soul or spirit
and what about human well human have free will same as angels have but humans should make his decisions when he lives because after that it's too late, after that it's like those angels who stayed at gods side we can make decision but we don't want broke against god.

Answer 7

Wow...now THIS is an awesome question. Kudos to you for having substantial thoughts. Yes and no:

Remember in scripture is a story of the man who went to hell after he died and asked Abraham to dip his finger in the water and lay it upon his tongue. He also wanted to know if he could return to his brothers and tell them about hell and wasn't allowed to.

Someone reading this is going to say, "Abraham in hell?" Yep! Hell is referred to as a place for souls after death and departure from the human body. The LAKE OF FIRE is reserved for those who are in hell and condemned. The bosom of Abraham is a place in hell for people (B.C.) who are destined for glory. So in a scriptural sense hell is not entirely a bad place. This was B.C. so, I want to go there and find out! Ha! ALSO, I believe in scripture, it was King Saul who called on the spirit of .... I think it was the dead prophet Samuel...and Samuel wasn't too happy about that. So according to scripture souls are bound by commands.
Do Angels have freewill? Well, Satan is a fallen angel and decided he was better than God. Also in the old testament Angels "laid with the sons of men." So I believe Angels do have freewill.
Demons...theres a scripture that refers to God wanting King Jehosephat ...(I think that was the king) to believe that he was not going to die in war. He consulted with the elders/prophets/priests or some group of holy counsel and God said he needed someone to lie to the king and tell him to go ahead into battle because he was going to live. A demonic spririt offered himself to go and tell this lie. So I believe demons have free-will as well, but just like anything else is subject to the commands of God, (Jesus commanding demons many of times to depart from humans)

Anywho...I'm probably way off base, but this was a good question no less!

Answer 8

Demons and angels have free will,,,Satan fell , he thought he was God so yes they do,, Demons I don't know the bible isn't clear if they will be forgived,, I don't think so...
HUmans once your dead that is it, you made your choice already, either way you choice when you were alive who you wnated to serve..

Answer 9

Spirts are either Demons or Angels Like Heaven or Hell When someone dies their spirit is either lifted to Heaven or gone to hell not stuck on earth

Answer 10

Well once you are dead you are dead. Once you have fallen away, there is NO TURNING BACK (think Judas, Satan etc)
Keep in mind there is a difference between falling away and going astray (like Peter denied Jesus 3x)

Holy angels can grow closer to God. So can people, who are alive. Jesus in the gospels in reference to Abraham Isaac and Jacob...said that they were alive (in Heaven). He said "God is the God of the living, not the dead".

but if you are in hell you are dead, so to speak